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To me, the most suprising "twist" of the movie was that they almost turned Khan into some kind of anti-hero.

From a certain POV he had legitimate reasons for the London bombing and the attack on Starfleet headquarters. I would also point out that Khan had fully cooperated with Kirk and his crew... up until the moment when Kirk ordered Scotty to shoot him. That's the moment when Khan turned on Kirk. Khan probably figured that Kirk must be another Starfleet scumbag just like Admiral Marcus was.

I had a similar thought. For a while I wondered whether they would be going the route of Khan being something of a good guy who got put into a situation he couldn't resolve but through violence and some things in this new universe being fundamentally different from the old one. I thought that the movie might end with Khan and his followers getting their own planet to play on.

To sum up my review in one word: awesome. I liked this better than the first movie (which I thought was great). The dialogue was great, to the point and witty. The story seemed much tighter and more realistic.

I appreciated how they addressed a number of points that bugged people about the first movie, most importantly Kirk's recklessness and that he isn't really ready to be captain but also the coldness with which he condemned Nero and his crew to die. He's on a similar path of revenge in this movie but in the end he (and Spock) let Khan and his followers live.

I thought it was a clever idea to twist the death scene of The Wrath of Khan around so that Kirk would die. Spock shouting, "Khan!" was perhaps a bit too much, especially since this has become something of a meme, but the scene itself did work and was quite moving, even though I knew that Kirk wouldn't stay dead and I had already figured out how he would be saved.

The character building was also improved in this movie over the last one, I felt. We got two small but insightful scenes with Sulu showing his respect for the captaincy and his subsequent demeanor as acting captain. While Scotty and his sidekick mostly served as comic relief he had a great scene when he objected to the torpedos. Uhura was more fleshed out as well. Kirk, Spock and Uhura really came off as friends. McCoy was great, too - or rather, Karl Urban was at portraying him. The scene where he tries to impress Carol as they're opening the torpedo was hilarious.

I love how diverse this universe is compared to the TOS one. They really go to great lengths to put in aliens as extras and non-white humans for smaller roles. I also loved the design of the Nibiru aliens and that of the Klingons. They looked pretty scary.
Since we didn't get too see that much of Earth in the older shows I'm always thrilled by the looks of futuristic Earth.

Since people complained about it on here I got an extra chuckle out of Scotty's rant about how ridiculous it is to hide a starship under the sea.

And also: OMG! They killed Pike! I really liked him so that saddens me. Would have loved to see more of him.

I love that this movie ends with them going on the first five-year-mission so I expect the next movie to divert from the "villain wants to destroy Earth" scheme. I'm really looking forward to this.

By the way, I saw the movie in 3D and I felt they did a pretty good job with it. There are some nice small effects that are pretty great in 3D.

So, this long-time Trek fan really enjoyed the movie - though now having read some of the negative reviews preceding mine I wonder whether I should feel bad about it.

__________________
"Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates." Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi

I feel the TOS films had a larger diversity of aliens than the TNG films. In five of the six films, there were crowd scenes with a large number of aliens. TNG films didn't have crowd scenes with aliens; the films were more narrower in their scope, with the attention focused on the ship.

I read the last review, and I think the writer brought up a genuine criticism. I have found that many of JJ Abrams productions have had underdeveloped characters. I watched the series Alcatraz, and I could never understand why the director went out of his way to alienate and isolate his team. The relationship didn't undergo a change - it was the same in the end as it was in the beginning. (When I watched the Vengeance taking out the prison, I was thinking that possible that Abrams was making a statement on this failed show.)

probably the best trek film ever. excellent story. lots of action. plenty of plot.
[...]
very very good!!

Count Zero wrote:

...
To sum up my review in one word: awesome. I liked this better than the first movie (which I thought was great). The dialogue was great, to the point and witty. The story seemed much tighter and more realistic.
[...]
So, this long-time Trek fan really enjoyed the movie...

That's two votes saying I'm probably going to like this quite a bit, once it finally gets to a theatre in my neighborhood.

__________________One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie
is that a cat has only nine lives. — Mark Twain

Keeping tabs on Twitter, Trekmovie, etc. So far reviews are running about 90% positive, 5% mediocre and 5% bad. We really couldn't ask for much better. About 25% of the reviews are calling it the best Trek film ever. Rotten Tomatoes is now at 86% fresh, up from 83% yesterday. .

Liked it better than the last one and would give it C+/B-. Had a few logic issues but far less than the last one. The crew interaction was good, though I think the Spock/Uhura stuff was the weakest part of it. Looked good, decent action, nice salutes to old Trek. Overall a decent enough movie, not the best movie I've seen recently but probably the best sci-fi one I've seen so far this year.

Great effects, neat production design, fine music – that's all this film has going for it.

Funny, this is how I'd describe Star Trek - The Motion Picture. Which could have been a lot better if its production hadn't been rushed to make a December 1979 launch date, whereas STID has had 4 whole years to prepare.

I gotta be real: discovering who the villain is after all, I do admit I was disappointed. With a whole new version of the Star Trek universe to play with, I was hoping for something more satisfying than Khan. I'd almost have rathered 'John Harrison', a brand new villain. Regardless of what is done with him I can't help feeling that falling back on Khan (or any specific former villain for that matter) was a creatively bankrupt move on Orci and Kutzman's part.

I've got my tickets already though and I'm going to see this on Saturday no matter what. I loved Trek 2009 and as long as the movie pulls me along on a fun adventure I won't really mind. But I do have to be honest. Discovering it was Khan all along feels like an anti-climax now.

Just walked out of the theatre. Will write more later but - first reaction? Underwhelmed. That just didn't hit the mark for me at all. Certain scenes had their merit, granted. But overall... A bit disappointed. Wow. Was not expecting that reaction... Anyway that's just my first thoughts straight out of the door.

Hmmm.

edit: Another observation in terms of visuals. May be considered spoilerish ...

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Very impressive. The Klingon vessels looked magnificent - they really evoked a bird of prey. However, one interesting tidbit - if you're like me and dig a bit of space combat - you've seen it. The trailers contain about 90% + of all the action. So don't get your hopes up in that regard.